What Makes a Person Beautiful?

Definitions of beauty have evolved countless times—for instance, from plump to thin and back again. But a new study from Cardiff University in Wales shows that people may find mixed-race faces the most attractive—and this may be a deeper, more lasting kind of appreciation. In the largest study of its kind, Michael Lewis of Cardiff's School of Psychology, collected a random sample of 1205 black, white, and mixed-race faces. (Rashida Jones, above, has a white mother and a black father—specifically, actress Peggy Lipton and music producer Quincy Jones.) Each face was then rated by a panel of participants for its perceived attractiveness to others. In a similar earlier study, a psychologist at the University of Western Australia found that when Caucasian and Japanese volunteers looked at photos of Caucasian, Japanese, and Eurasian faces, both groups rated the Eurasian faces as most attractive. Scientists do have a hypothesis for why people might prefer a melting-pot ideal—and it isn't because of a passing beauty trend. Evolutionary psychologists suggest that it's because humans may be hard-wired to seek out mates who clearly have genetic diversity and are therefore likely to be healthier.